Monday, May 21, 2012

My First
Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin
experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first
rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands. Today's guest is Susan Woodring, author
of the new novel Goliath (St. Martin’s
Press) and the 2008 short story collection Springtime on Mars (Press 53). Ann Hood (author of The Red Thread) had this to say about Goliath: “Like a contemporary Winesburg, Ohio, Susan Woodring’s Goliath brings
small town life beautifully, achingly alive. Sprinkled with marching bands,
baseball, and parades, and a cast of southern characters who will charm the
pants off you, Goliath is a memorable novel, written in a new memorable
voice.” Woodring’s short fiction has appeared in Isotope, Passages North, turnrow, and Surreal South, among other anthologies
and literary magazines. She currently lives in western North
Carolina with her children and her husband.
Visit her website here.

The First Time I Spoke with
My Agenton the Phone

First, it needs to be said: I
am a special kind of freak.

Typical of writers, I am an
introvert who cares passionately about people. I do. I love people. They amaze
me. And not only from a writerly standpoint, but from a very human one. I take
my kids to the park and a very old woman sits next to me on the bench. She observes
the knitting on my lap and somehow connects that to a job she had serving lunch
at an elementary school cafeteria fifty years ago. Her connections are hazy,
but she is so dear, I want to hug her. I want to follow her home and sit in her
living room and watch “Wheel of Fortune” with her. I want to do her laundry. Sweep her floor. I want to, in the least, ask for more. More about her life and
the cafeteria and living in this town, my town, for the past eighty or so
years. Tell me more, I want to say.

Another day, the cashier at
Walmart looks so very tired, tells me it’s been crazy in there, it’s the end of
the month when everyone and their brother is in there shopping away their
paycheck, and I want to shut down her lane for her. I’m thinking about buying
her a huge bag of peanut M&Ms because they’re my favorite, and I want to
share that with her: the comfort of peanut M&Ms. I want to take her to the
beach. Read to her. Somehow I know she is the most wonderful human being in the
world—to be a cashier at Walmart on the state employees’ payday!—and it becomes
crucially important, suddenly, for me to tell her so.

But, what do I do? Me, the special
freak who loves people but has substantial deficits when it comes to actually
talking to anyone? I tell the old woman, “Wow,” and turn my head back down to
my knitting. My heart is pounding in my ears for all the things I want to say. And then, to the cashier at Walmart, I say, “I hope you’re getting off soon.” I’m too shy to buy her the M&Ms though I want to, dammit. I really, really
do.

I am like this everywhere. With the parents of my kids’ friends, with fellow townspeople I run into at the
post office, with other writers and editors at conferences and workshops. I
simply turn plain stupid.

You might guess that I was
not at all prepared to participate in the kind of professional banter, the
small talk and polite inquiries, necessary when The Call finally came. You
would be right.

When the man who would be my
agent calls for the first time, I am grateful to tears, to ecstatic, nearly
orgasmic leaps of joy at his offer to represent my novel. But instead of
imparting some reasonable-sized morsel of my gratitude, I instead tell him how
very sad I was at the passing of Michael Jackson.

I blabber on about wall paint
and camping with my kids and how I should never, ever be alone in my house for
three days in a row. About walking around the block in Kure Beach at three
o’clock in the morning. It’s all connected to the book—kind of. All of these
things happened right after I finished the book; they each had felt, in
different ways, like consequences of
my finishing the book. It was as if Michael Jackson O.D.’ed and died because
I’d finished writing my story about a dying furniture factory town.

This book, my Goliath, that I didn’t know if it was
worth anything or not. This book that only two other people had read before
this man, this man talking to me now on the phone. This man who is on my
shortlist of agents I’d love, love, love to have. This man who is in the
process of helping me make my dreams come true, telling me how much he likes my book…and I’m talking Michael Jackson.

What I mean to say, of
course, is how pleased I am by his interest in my work and how thrilled I am by
his offer. I mean to speak eloquently and intelligently (or, at least, intelligibly)
about the themes in the book, the characters, the setting. The current state of
publishing and the market and submission possibilities and the like.

I blabber on and on about all
these truly stupid things, and finally, he says, “Does this mean you accept my
offer of representation?”

It’s been a few years, and
I’m still an idiot on the phone with him, and with my editor, but they are both
gracious and really wonderful people who listen politely to my yammering and to
my um…um…um. They have become experts at getting out the information from me
that they actually need, and they’re both good-humored and very patient about
the whole ridiculous process. God bless them both.

And God bless the very old
woman at the park who interpreted my “Wow,” rightly and talked on. About
seat-belts and other changes in our world. Who, rising to leave, said she had enjoyed
talking with me. And the cashier at Walmart who smiled at my meager comment
about her getting off work soon. Maybe she heard my attempt at sympathy for her
and her long, hard day even if the M&Ms thing didn’t translate.

8 comments:

And, if you ever do go for it w/ the M&M's, be sure to ring it up on a separate receipt, then give it all to the cashier, free & clear. (Learned this from one of those park-bench-sitting little-old-lady-types.)

I so related to this. I'm always rewriting conversations with what I should have said if my brain would do what everyone else's seems to. The only place I'm really safe if unleashed is the page. A pleasure to meet you, Susan - and thank you, David, for hosting her.

The Quivering Pen

The Quivering Pen's motto can be summed up in two words: Book Evangelism. The blog is written and curated by David Abrams, author of the Iraq War comedy Fobbit (Grove/Atlantic, 2012), from his home office in Butte, Montana. It is fueled by early-morning cups of coffee, the occasional bowl of Cheez-Its, and a lifelong love of good books.